


the first shall be last & the last shall be first

by starlightwalking



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Back to Middle-Earth Month, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Inspired by The Last Five Years, M/M, Re-embodied elves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 22:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18979657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightwalking/pseuds/starlightwalking
Summary: One perished in ice, the other in fire. They meet in the middle, and change each other.





	the first shall be last & the last shall be first

**Author's Note:**

> what’s up friends, I’m back two months late with my B2MeM prompt for March 28! I got two hits for that day but couldn’t figure out how to combine them. For this fic, 28a, the prompt is Maedhros/Elenwë from the Crack Pairings card.
> 
> Honestly, this was probably the hardest crack pairing for me to write! This is nothing close to my actual thoughts on Elenwë or Maedhros and their re-embodiments (I have a lot of ideas for Mae, and I really like the idea of Elenwë being reborn way early and then getting together with fellow-Vanya Amarië, who is tired of waiting for Finrod), but it was really interesting to write! I had a hard time imagining Mae with a woman, especially her, so this isn’t quite romantic? Which, yeah, “not quite romantic” is pretty on brand for me, lmao.
> 
> The title is from a Bible verse. I only know the Mormon interpretation of that line, so I can say that I just liked the sound of it and thought it fit the Last Five Years style of this fic and has no other real meaning, but feel free to read into it if you want I guess? (Also I know next to nothing about TLFY except the structure, lmao.) I have notes on the structure in the end notes. :)

The ice-water was not as painful as she had expected. She had watched others fade as the cold leeched all strength from them, watched as others screamed as icy waves swept them away, watched as mothers found themselves too numb to mourn children bitten by frost. Helcaraxë was unforgiving, bitter in its frigid air and eternal storms.

Her own wounds were fierce and burning, all warmth streaming out of her  _hröa_ in rivers of blood. Red was not a color they saw often on the ice; her  _fëa_ , already distant from her physical suffering, watched with detached interest as her lifeblood spilled upon the ice. How interesting it was, how pretty.

The creature that had bit her was slain with the fury of her husband's revenge; her stomach, were it not filled with her own rushing blood, would have hungered for its flesh. It would feed her family for days—sennights, even. They had all learned to ration on this dreadful journey.

She was too far gone. Even if her wounds could have been healed, her body had already slipped through the cracks of ice where the beast had emerged. She heard her husband crying her name, her daughter sobbing and wailing, a few others already gorging themselves on the fresh kill like they themselves were the beasts—

All that faded away as the sea claimed her. It leeched the warmth of her  _hröa_  away, filled her lungs with saltwater, stanched the flow of her blood. The cold consumed her, and she felt no more pain.

A wave spun her around, and she saw no more. She felt nothing but the numbing cold, gentle as a stream, washing over her, and she let her  _fëa_  drift away...

But the waves sucked her spirit back into their embrace, and the numbness overtook even her  _fëa_ , and she felt the first seeds of panic as the ice locked her in place far from Mandos' Halls.

The stream became a river, drowning her, holding her down, and

 

                                                                                                                         he gasped for air, breathing in only water, and despair filled his chest just as the liquid did. He was facedown in a river, his  _hröa_  alight with terrible sensation, it  _hurt_  it  _hurt_  it  _hurt_ —

Something— _someone_ —grabbed him by the neck and hoisted him out of his watery doom. He was flung down heavily on the soft earth, his savior unforgivingly pushing the water out of his chest until he spat up only phlegm and coughed until his throat was clear.

The weight on his chest lifted and he lay, shivering, upon the ground. After his heartbeat slowed, he dared crack open in his eyes, squinting in the harsh sunlight.

It was alien t o feel at  _all_ , let alone so  _much_ , and he trembled at the glory of Aman. Slowly, he pushed himself upright, looking about for his savior.

Tall. Hair dark as a raven's. That nose—so familiar. That scowl—so...  _differently_  familiar.

"Finno?" he croaked, but he knew it was not him.

"Turno, you bastard," growled his savior. Turukáno threw a bundle at him, and he flinched as he caught it—caught it with  _two_  hands. "Now get some clothes on. Just because my brother wants to see your dick doesn't mean I do."

For a moment, he only stared, slowly processing his return to life. Only when Turukáno crossed his arms expectantly did he realize he was naked sheepishly pulled on the provided breeches.

"Why are you..." he began, but it had been so long since he'd had a voice that he couldn't remember how to work it.

"I know you want my brother," Turukáno said, offering a hand. He took it, only to be yanked to his feet violently, and inch away from his cousin's face. (He may have been called "the Tall," but Turukáno rivalled him in height.)

"T-Turno—" he stammered.

"Don't think I've forgiven you because I'm here," Turukáno growled. "Mandos cleansed you of many things, but—you  _took_  her from me. You and your father, but  _he's_  not here, and  _you_  are.  _Where is she?_ "

He stared blankly. "Wh..."

Disgusted, Turukáno flung him back down to the ground. "Don't tell me you've forgotten. She was the first of our family to die on your ill-begotten quest for vengeance."

"...Elenwë?" he said. "She's—not out yet?"

"They let out the victorious Kinslayer before the innocent victim." Turukáno's face twisted in a horrible sneer. "How—poetic."

"I..." He had never been close to Turukáno's wife. She was a Vanya, which made her all but equal to Indis in the eyes of his father. From the few distant, polite interactions they'd had, he'd not gotten much glimpse of her character.

Turukáno knew this—why did he come to  _him_  for such information? It was not  _his_  fault Elenwë was still in Námo's embrace. If only Finno were here to calm his brother—

Turukáno must have seen the shift to longing in his eyes, for he said the one thing that made him more desperate than anything else could have: "If you don't tell me about her, I will never let you see Findekáno again."

It was a punch to the gut—the air left him, a shock to a man so recently repossessed for the need of such a thing. Perhaps it was that momentary lack of breath that tugged him back in time to those terrible, burning moments Námo had worked so hard to enshroud in foggy memory, for it was then, at last, that

 

                                            he saw something beneath him, a pale glimmer within frozen ice. In his disorientation, it was impossible to focus on the glint of light, but equally impossible to drift past it. He hung in the air, his  _fëa_  unmoving, as he tried to discern what lay entrapped in the icy deeps.

He let the weight of his guilt pull him down, down, down beneath the surface. His  _fëa_ , yet engulfed in flame, melted the ice around him as he peered deep into the center of the frozen mass that hid the light.

It was—

for the first time in uncountable years she felt something, a flame licking at the edges of her consciousness. Her  _fëa_  stirred to wakefulness, and she saw dimly a fire piercing the ice. Dumb, she stood still even as a burning hand reached for her and pulled her from her tomb.

The man's face was indiscernible, scarred beyond recognition, but the light of his  _fëa_  was unmistakable. Only two had ever burned so bright, and the father would never have saved a Vanya.

She tried to speak but could not. She was chilled to the very center of her soul, unable to unsee the horrors, trapped in terrible stasis.

Even as she watched the fire burned away at his face, the scab of his sin peeling from him. Coal crumbled from his face, and piercing eye opened wide and raw.

"Elenwë," he said. Why was she here? She had perished on the Grinding Ice. Surely her spirit should have gone to Mandos long ago.

"Nn." She tried to speak, but shivering was all her  _fëa_  could manage. "Nnnyy."

"Nelyafinwë," he confirmed, reaching out a hand. His heart was pierced with pity for her. "Why are you... Have you been here since...?"

At his touch she wept and melted into his embrace as she had to no other man but her husband. Where was Turno now, when she needed him? She had never held fondness for the sons of Fëanáro, but it was Nelyafinwë who had freed her.

And he had never loved a woman, but her ice tempered the consuming fire, and he held her until she quenched his pain and he had the strength to lead them both across the waters and back to the Blessed Realm

 

                                                                                                                where she now awoke in gentle sunlight, healed at last of her many hurts. She lay on soft grass, feeling wind brush against her face, and she didn't want this moment to end. She was at peace.

But she was alive now, and life went on where death did not. It was the stasis that so fractured her, and so she opened her eyes to behold the anxious face of her husband.

He rushed toward her, but she flinched back, unready for his embrace. A hand grasped his shoulder: Findekáno, the brother ever-faithful, ever-caring.

She pushed herself to her feet, and her eyes wandered across the sunlight clearing. There were others there, besides Turno and Finno: Írissë and Arko, Amarië, her parents and sister! But her gaze landed on the fire-haired man who stood in Finno's shadow. The man who broke her soul from its icy prison.

She went to him first. She heard the choked cry from Turno's throat, the gasp Finno cannot hide as she stared at Nelyafinwë. Maitimo, his mother called him, and Maitimo was the name Finno always used even when Turno refused to call him anything other than his full and proper name. To Finno he was beautiful; to Turno, his father's son.

But to  _her_...

She understood now why they named him Russandol for his coppery hair, but to her that hair will always be like the fire from whence it was reborn, the fire that released her. She clasped arms with him and  _felt_  that flame again, more gentle now, but still there. Still strong.

And then she turned to embrace her husband and her family, while Russandol watched from the shadow of the trees, but the odd feeling remained, and she knew he felt it too, something impossible to understand

 

                                                                                                                             but he  _did_  understand, though he hated it and himself; he understood why his father's jewel rejected him, though he did not want to. It burned him to the bone, the pain worse than Finno's blade as it pierced his other wrist, but he could not bring himself to cast it aside.

He had fled from Kano knowing never in life would they see each other again: the guilt, the suffering, it was too strong. He knew not where Kano would find his doom, but he knew where his lay: the chasmic mountain broken by the fires of Ancalagon, burning burning burning like his self-hatred burned like the Silmaril burned—

Even as he stumbled forth, head spinning, gem clutched to his chest within a charred and smoking fist, he dared not think of Námo's welcome to his wayward spirit, but he had fulfilled the Oath. He could not avoid Doom any longer: the volcanic crater beckoned him, demanding he atone for his vile deeds.

And so he cast himself into the chasm's welcoming fire, and for a brief moment the Silmaril's glory was cooler than the lava around him and he felt it comfort him—

He needed the flame's purification, its cleansing, to free his  _fëa_  from his  _hröa_. He had not anticipated that this fiery pain would be greater than all his guilt.

**Author's Note:**

> I structured this fic very particularly. 1) Elenwë’s death, in ice; 2) Maedhros’s rebirth, in water; 3) their meeting in the middle; 4) Elenwë’s rebirth, in sunlight; and 5) Maedhros’s death, in fire. I am allll about that irony and contrast and angst, mmmm-mmm. And while technically neither Mae nor Elenwë were “first” or “last” to die/be reborn by anyone’s standards, I was so intrigued by this idea I had to go with it. Especially when my other option for this prompt was like, a fling before either of them were seriously involved with someone else, which tbh didn’t seem very interesting.
> 
>  
> 
> Some questions I asked myself while writing this...
> 
> Why is Turgon there to greet Maedhros instead of Fingon? For all I needed it for the story to work, that question did bother me, so here’s the answer I came up with: I think after Elenwë just /did not come back/ from Mandos, he kept pestering the Valar to let her out/explain why. The Valar are not known for being good at communicating with the Children, so instead of saying “sorry, her spirit never showed up” or “she is extremely traumatized and needs more time before being reborn” Irmo just decides to send him cryptic dreams whenever one of the Finwions is about to be released so he can bother them instead.  
> He doesn’t really mind and it helps the re-embodied elves to have a welcoming committee, so when folks like, idk, Orodreth get released he’ll bring the family along to welcome them and ask about Elenwë. However, as time goes on and the returners get less and less frequent, he gets more desperate and angry, plus he has a /lot/ of reasons to be pissed at Maedhros. I don’t think they got along when they were both in Valinor, and Turgon blamed the Fëanorians for Elenwë’s death, and he thinks it’s extremely unfair that the incredibly guilty Mae gets out before his innocent wife does.  
> I’m not sure where I land on this philosophical debate, but Turgon definitely views Mandos as “punishment” and not “healing” - it’s probably a mix of both, but when he was in there he really only got a slap on the wrist for A) going into exile, but there’s so many exiles coming back that by the time they get to him they’re not too worried about that, and B) ignoring Ulmo’s warning via Tuor and being prideful about Gondolin. And I don’t really think he had that much trauma to heal from (feel free to disagree! just my interpretation) so he only sees the punishment aspect and doesn’t understand why Elenwë is being punished.  
> As for his remark about Fingon - Mae & Finno were the worst-kept secret in all of Arda, he knows exactly what’s going on with them. Turgon wanted to confront Mae alone, so he didn’t tell anyone Mae was getting released. If Fingon had known, there’s no force on Arda that would have kept him from coming along...and there’s no way Turgon could have enforced his threat and he knows it, but the fear worked and got Mae to remember what happened with Elenwë & tell Turgon - not that he really expected Mae to know much! 
> 
> Next big question: Why is Maedhros let out before Elenwë? Aside from “because it’s important for the thesis of the fic,” I think the fire really /did/ purify him, and he’d been punished enough already so that his stay wasn’t as long. Elenwë, meanwhile, was frozen in inescapable pain and then unexpectedly released so she needed more time to recover. I think she recovered more fully, though. And still, it’s a verrrryyy long time before either of them get let out of Mandos, but the sequence is important.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting!  
> You can find me on tumblr [@arofili](http://arofili.tumblr.com/).


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